


haven't lost it all yet

by cosmic_kate



Category: The 100 (TV), The 100 Series - Kass Morgan
Genre: Bellarke, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, POV Multiple, canonverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2017-01-18
Packaged: 2018-09-01 15:30:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8629453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmic_kate/pseuds/cosmic_kate
Summary: “Everyone who has ever loved me is dead.”Bellamy is quiet behind her for so long, she’s sure he’s not going to speak at all. But then he does.“Not everyone,” he says, soft, and then he’s gone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic. Please be gentle. That being said, I appreciate all kudos, comments, and constructive criticism. :)
> 
> Huge thanks to my home girl Kelsi (coldhandswildhearts.tumblr.com) for reading this like, 100 times.
> 
> Title from The Fray's "Syndicate" because, like all of their songs, it's bellarke af.

.

They find Octavia with her back to the wall in the narrow hallway outside the fourth floor stairwell, her legs splayed out in front of her, her bloody sword resting in her lap. No one has any idea how she made it this far down the tower. It took them hours to get to this floor.

If Clarke had wondered why there were half-healed cuts and bruises on Bellamy’s face before, she doesn’t anymore. Bellamy warily approaches his sister, crouching to gently touch her shoulder, but Octavia stands up quickly, and Bellamy startles so visibly that he actually falls backwards on his ass. Octavia looks smug.

Clarke feels bile rise in her throat.

“Come with me,” she says, grabbing his hand and pulling him down the hallway. She sees the desperate look in his eyes as he glances back at his sister, and if her heart could break more, it would, because the last time she saw that look in Bellamy’s eyes, he was looking at her.

She pulls him down another narrow hallway and into a tiny bedroom. Servant’s quarters, probably. She sits him on the small bed while she rummages through the drawers for a clean rag. Pulling a stool and the large water basin next to the bed, she sits and begins to gingerly dab the wet cloth at the fresh wounds on his face. To her surprise, he doesn’t protest.

“I’ve lost her,” he mumbles. His eyes are dazed and unfocused, still trained on the door, and he doesn’t even flinch when she runs the rag over a particularly deep cut on his nose, which is definitely broken.

“Bellamy,” she says, soft, because she doesn’t know what else to say. She sighs, raising her hand to lightly trace the half-healed cuts on his cheek, his nose, his jaw. For the first time since she told him about ALIE’s threat, he looks her in the eye. “Bellamy,” she repeats, finding her voice. “You didn’t deserve this.”

He shakes his head. “You weren’t there, Clarke.”

For the first time, it doesn’t feel like an insult.

“The things I’ve done,” he continues. “I deserved it.”

“You didn’t kill Lincoln.”

“I didn’t save him, either.”

“You tried to—“

“But I didn’t.”

With an exasperated sigh, she drops the rag from his face and leans forward, her forehead resting on his shoulder. He falters for a moment, but then gently takes the rag from her hands and tips her head up. Without a word, he brushes the last remnants of Ontari’s blood from her nose and chin. When he’s finished, he looks at her for a long moment.

“I’m…um,” he starts softly, seemingly nervous. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

Clarke half-smiles. She reaches for his hand and squeezes it. “I’m glad you’re okay, too.”

“You should get some rest.” He gestures to the bed. “I’ll come get you when they get the stairwell cleared.”

Too tired to protest, Clarke nods and climbs into the tiny bed, sliding under the stiff blankets. She’s already drifting off when Bellamy leaves the room, cracking the door on his way out.

 

After they finally clear the stairwells in the tower, it’s a long, silent journey back to Arkadia. Even though Abby is clutching her hand the entire way, Clarke can’t bring herself to tell her about ALIE’s threat of impending nuclear doom. She doesn’t know if her mom could handle it. She doesn’t know if anyone in this group can handle it.

As she looks around, she sees a lot of broken people, but she sees a lot of healing people too. Leading the group are Kane and Bellamy, rifles slung across their backs, momentarily unafraid of what or who might be lurking in the words. A little further back, she spots Miller and Bryan, leaning on each other for support. To her right she sees Murphy and Emori walking shoulder to shoulder, and Clarke hasn’t eaten in a few days, so she can’t be sure, but she thinks she sees Murphy _smile._ There are even a few Grounders in the pack, deciding to leave the mess of Polis behind to settle in and around Arkadia. Roan is among them, looking haggard but standing tall, and so is Indra, who is hobbling alongside Octavia, looking proud and maybe a little frightened.

A few hours after they arrive in Arkadia, after helping her mother and Jackson tend to the wounded, Clarke wanders the path to engineering. Raven is right where Clarke knew she’d be, hunched over a metal table, fiddling with pieces of scrap metal.

“Raven,” she breathes.

Before Clarke can even blink, Raven flies around the table and envelopes her friend in a hug.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” Raven says, pulling away to get a better look at Clarke. “You saw my signal,” she smiles, smug.

“Subtle,” Clarke laughs, shifting on her feet. “But, speaking of you solving all our problems…”

Raven’s smile fades, suddenly serious. “Oh boy.”

“We have a new problem.”

Sighing, Raven rounds her table and plops down on her workbench. “When do we not have a problem?” she says, halfheartedly waving a wrench through the air. “Will there ever be a time when we’re not fighting for our lives?” Tossing the wrench, she runs her hands over her face. “Well, what is it this time Clarke? Is it Ice Nation? What do we need? More weapons? Higher security? A rocket launcher? I say we just blow ‘em to hell this time, screw diplomacy, ‘cause I’m-“

“Raven,” Clarke says, cutting Raven’s tirade short. “It’s not the Grounders.” She pauses, not quite sure how to break the news. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath.“It’s a nuclear apocalypse.”

Clearly perplexed, Raven says nothing.

“We have six months until 96% of the Earth is once again a nuclear wasteland,” Clarke tells her, blunt.

“How—“

“ALIE told me. In the City of Light.”

“And you believe her?”

“She’s a computer.”

“So?”

“Can computers lie?”

Raven contemplates this for a moment, and seemingly satisfied that what Clarke is saying is true, she nods. “Tell me everything.”

Clarke gives her the rundown, informing her that they basically have six months to figure out either how to stop a bunch of nuclear reactors from exploding, or find the 4% of inhabitable Earth and migrate. Or, the most likely option, die.

“I have no idea how I’m going to do this,” Raven says, sighing and rolling her chair to the computer in the corner, “but I’ll get started.”

“If anyone can do this, Raven,” Clarke says, “it’s you.” She turns to leave. “I have to head back to medical, but um…I’ll be back.”

Raven turns to look at her, a serious look on her face. “I’m sorry about Lexa, Clarke. I know—“ Raven falters, absentmindedly running her finger over a long scar on her forearm, one Clarke knows is from TonDC. “—I know you cared about her.”

Clarke bites her lip and gives her friend a sharp nod. “Thanks,” she says, and walks out the door.

 

 

.

Only 3 hours into the reconstruction of the completely pointless fence that can do nothing to protect them from a nuclear apocalypse, Bellamy finds himself in medical, face to face with the wrath of Clarke Griffin. He’s sore all over, has definitely pulled muscles in his back, and his throat is so swollen he can hardly speak or breathe. Clarke is pissed.

“You were supposed to take it easy, Bellamy,” she scolds him. She gives him something for the back pain and then makes him sit on the examination table. He tries to protest, but she’s Clarke, and she just pushes him backwards until the back of his legs bump the table and he sits.

She raises her hands to examine him, and the brush of her fingers on his neck is so feather light it sends shivers down his spine. She frowns at the dark purple bruises, as if she can make them go way with the sheer force of her gaze.

“I didn’t notice these before,” she mumbles.

He closes his eyes and shudders at the memory of a chipped Kane looming over him in the throne room, choking the life out of him. He feels the air being sucked from his lungs in the airlock. The chain in Mount Weather. Murphy’s noose.

It’s too much. He pushes Clarke’s hand away from his neck and bolts to his feet, desperate to get out this room, out of this space station, out of this god dammed _camp_.

“Bellamy!” Clarke tries to stop him with a hand on his arm, but he shrugs her off. He can’t think, can’t breathe, needs out, out, _out._

“I’m fine,” he rasps, walking away as quickly as his sore muscles will allow. He hears Clarke’s footsteps behind him, registers her voice, but he doesn’t know what she says. Her footfalls stop somewhere in the halls of the ark, and by the time his boots meet the soft earth outside the Ark’s walls, he’s alone.

As he makes his way to Raven’s gate, the only sounds he hears is the rushing of his blood through his veins and the rapid beating of his own heart. There’s a secluded place between the cool metal of the ark and the buzzing electricity of the fence, a place where he can be alone, but when he rounds the corner, instead he finds Octavia curled up in a ball against the side of the Ark, looking small and fragile as tears fall freely from her eyes.

The look that crosses her face when she sees him makes it clear that he is not welcome here. He leans against the Ark to catch his breath anyway, leaving plenty of distance between them. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her hastily wiping tear tracks from her cheeks, and the instinct to comfort his baby sister makes it difficult to focus on the sounds of his breathing and the zig-zag of the tree line in the distance.

He spares her a glance, wants to give her a smile, a nod, a reassuring hand, _anything_ , but she doesn’t look his way and he knows she doesn’t want that, doesn’t need that from him right now. He wonders if she ever will.

She sniffles and sits up straighter, defiant and strong-willed as ever, refusing to let anyone see her look weak. “I came here to be alone,” she says after a beat, gritting her teeth.

“Me too,” he responds, and they don’t speak after that.

 

After he cools off, Bellamy tries to go back to work on the gate, but Miller tells him to “chill the fuck out, Bellamy,” and gets Kane to put him on temporary leave. Granted, Kane doesn’t look him in the eye when he orders him to take the rest of the day off, but an order is an order.

He finds himself on his back on the extended roof of the ark, watching the sky turn pink and orange as the sun slips below the horizon, far from the raucous party some of the delinquents are throwing down below. He can’t bring himself to celebrate with them. Not when the world is ending.

It’s long past dark by the time he hears Clarke climb up the makeshift ladder he’s leaned against the wall. She slings a medical bag up onto the roof and plops down next to him, already opening her mouth to speak, but he’s ready for her.

“I’m fine, Clarke. I don’t need you to patch me up,” he bites, eyeing her medical bag.

She rolls her eyes and reaches into her bag anyway, but instead of gauze and medical supplies, Clarke pulls out a full bottle of champagne. She passes it to him, a tiny smirk playing on her lips.

“I think I owe you a drink,” she says, nudging his shoulder.

“Where did you get this?” he says, awed.

“Murphy stole it from Polis. I stole it from Murphy.” She shrugs, and then she smiles. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes, but it’s a real smile nonetheless, and after the way things have gone for her in the past few days, Bellamy thinks that’s a win in itself.

Clarke’s hair is wavy around her face, pulled back into an intricate braid like it had been when they first landed, her porcelain skin clean and glowing under the moon. She’s traded her grounder clothing for a standard pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and she looks so much like the Clarke he knows and loves that it hits him like a ton of bricks how much he _misses_ her.

She’s struggling with the cork, so he takes the bottle from her and twists it out with his knife. She produces two tin cups from her bag and watches intently as Bellamy fills them with the bubbly liquid, but before he can even recork the bottle, she’s downed her entire cup.

“I thought we were supposed to toast or something,” he laughs, pouring her another cup.

She raises this one, clinks it with his. “To our impending doom,” she says, and tosses it back.

Bellamy sips his drink a little slower.

There’s a beat of silence, a palpable tension in the air.

“Are you ever going to tell me what happened in the mountain?” she blurts out.

His limbs go cold.

When he lifts his head, her eyes are trained on him. Determined. Begging. A little sad.

He doesn’t answer.

“Why do you know what it’s like to be hung upside down and drained for your blood?” Her voice is small, barely a whisper. He’s never talked about the mountain, except in small pieces with Octavia, but Clarke’s eyes are so blue and sad and confused and it _hurts_ and he _wants to_ , so he cracks.

“Things didn’t go as planned,” he starts, a little sardonic. He keeps his eyes down, idly pulling at a loose thread on the leg of his pants. Clarke rests her forehead on his shoulder, and he tries to focus on her breathing. “Lincoln and I made it to the tunnels, but he wasn’t ready. He knew he wasn’t ready, but I pushed him, and he traded me for the red.” He feels Clarke tense, but he keeps going.

“They stripped us down, lined us up, me and a bunch of other grounders. They sorted us; some of them were to become reapers. The rest of us were marked for harvest. They chained us up, sprayed us with chemicals, shot us up with a bunch of drugs. I woke up naked, in a cage.”

He sighs, trying to keep his mind with his body, here on this roof, here with Clarke.

“I needed to get out. So I fought. But they gave me more drugs, knocked me out, I guess, and I woke up hanging upside down, watching my blood run through the wall.”

He leaves Echo out. He can’t think about Echo. What he lost because he trusted Echo.

“Maya saved me,” he says. “Maya saved me and people inside that mountain put their lives on the line for me and in the end I’m the one that killed them.” He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “God, Clarke, it’s all I do. All I do is kill people.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but he’s angry and he’s a little drunk so he keeps going.

“I killed 300 people when I destroyed that Radio. I killed those people in Mt. Weather. I massacred an entire army while they slept. I killed Linc—“

“You did _not_ kill Lincoln.” She grabs his face in her hands, forces him to look her in the eye. “You did not kill Lincoln. You didn’t know those people on the Ark would die. You pulled that lever with me in Mt. Weather because we had no other choice.” The force of her gaze could move mountains. “You have always done what you thought was right for the group.”

He looks at her then, wonders how she can look at him like this, like he’s _good_.

“We’ve always done what we thought was right,” she repeats, but Bellamy thinks it’s more for her benefit than his.

He places one of his hands over where one of hers rests on his cheek, brushing the soft skin there with his thumb. “We have,” he affirms, and he sees relief wash over her features before he continues. “But I was wrong.” He removes her hands from his face and turns away from her. “And a lot of people have died for it.”

“Bellam—“

“Clarke, please,” he says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Can we just—can we not do this right now? Let’s just drink, okay? We can hate ourselves again in the morning.”

She stares into her drink, swirls it around in her cup for a minute before giving him a tight nod and a fake half-smile. “Okay,” she says.

It works for a few hours, pretending that they aren’t two horrible, broken people; that they aren’t terrified for the nuclear meltdown ALIE promised. For a while, it’s easy to pretend that everything is okay between them. But too soon Bellamy runs out of constellations and Clarke runs out of ways to keep him talking and they’re side by side in silence, both a little drunk, or in Clarke’s case, a lot drunk, drowning in the all of the words unsaid hanging in the air between them.

Clarke is the first to speak.

“Do you think we’ll ever get to be happy?” she asks. She’s lying on her back, shoulder to shoulder with him, tracing the rim of her empty cup with her pointer finger. “Do you think we deserve that?”

Bellamy doesn’t know if they’ll ever be happy. He doesn’t even know if they’ll survive.

He knows they don’t deserve it.

“Yes,” he says anyway. He wants it.

She scoffs. She knows he’s lying.

She lets her head loll to the side so she’s looking at him. Her eyes are watery, and it occurs to him that their noses are only inches apart. He knows she’s thinking about Lexa. He doesn’t understand, but he knows.

He thinks of Gina and his heart stings.

“Do you think we’ll ever get to love again?” she asks.

This answer is easy. He’s already done it.

“Yes.”

She nods. He thinks maybe she believes him.

 

Getting Clarke off the roof is one of the hardest things Bellamy’s done in his time on Earth, and he’s done some hard shit. At first, she insists on climbing down herself, even though she’s belligerently drunk. She gets on her hands and knees as if she’s trying to stand, but she topples over before she can get her feet under her, so Bellamy quickly makes his way down the ladder first.

This apparently pisses her off.

“I can do it m’self, Bellamy,” she slurs from where she’s camped out on the roof, refusing to accept his assistance.

He’s standing at the foot of the ladder with his hands on his hips, impatient, his buzz wearing off quickly. It seems the time he spent at the bar after Mt. Weather has provided him a tolerance.

“Clarke, you can’t even stand up.”

“Yes,” she says, a little too loud, “I can.” She gets to her knees, and he can tell when everything starts spinning for her because she pitches forward and catches herself on all fours. “Woah,” she giggles.

When her giggling subsides, she rolls to the edge of the roof, letting one arm dangle off the side. It makes him a little nervous, seeing as she has almost no control of her own body, but when he moves himself to where he could catch her (or at least break her fall), she rolls her eyes at him. Despite how exhausted and not drunk he is, he huffs a laugh, because he’s never seen anything more _Clarke_ in his life.

She just looks at him for a moment, expression unreadable, and he’s weak, feeling his heart soften at the sight of her golden hair illuminated by the moonlight and the stormy blue of her eyes and then-

“I can’t get down, Bell,” she sighs, defeated.

“I know,” he says. “Come on.”

She gets herself onto the ladder, makes it a few rungs on her own even, but once she’s close enough for him to skim the tips of his fingers against her back, she just slumps back into him, either too tired or too drunk to finish the ladder on her own.

By the time they make it to the main door of Alpha Station, Clarke is leaning almost all of her weight against him, mumbling something about a two headed deer.

“Which way, Clarke?” Bellamy asks her.

“I dunno.”

“What’s your room number?” he clarifies, turning her to face him.

“I dunno,” she slurs again, more aggressive this time.

”How do you not know, Clarke?”

“I dunno. I slept in medical last night.” She pitches forward when he lets go of her, leaning her forehead on the middle of his chest and groaning. “I’m so tired.”

He sighs and props her up with his arm. “I know. Come on, I have a couch.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a short lil chapter to keep y'all fed.
> 
> As always, any kudos/comments/feedback is much appreciated :)

.

Clarke is pulled from her first nightmare-free sleep in almost three months by the most annoying voice she’s ever heard.

“Rise and shine, princess. It’s almost noon.”

“Fuck off, Murphy,” she groans.

She yanks the covers over her head just before the lights flick on, burrowing into the pillows and the warmth and the scent that’s earth and trees and mint and distinctly not hers but is very distinctly Bellamy’s.

She has no idea how or why she is in Bellamy’s bed, but judging by her pounding headache and dry mouth, she’s guessing it has to do with the empty bottle of champagne Murphy unforgivingly slams on the bedside table.

“Thanks for saving me some.”

Clarke disentangles herself from the blankets and sits up, wiping sleep from her eyes. She’s fully clothed, except for her shoes, which are perfectly aligned at the foot of the bed. Her hair is mostly loose from her braid, and her breath tastes worse than it ever has on Earth. There’s a cup of water and two little white pills on the bedside table for her impending hangover, but when she reaches for them, the room tilts. She might still be drunk.

“You okay?” Murphy smirks.

“I’m _fine._ ” She tosses back the pills and takes a deep breath, willing the room to stay on its axis.

“You look like shit.”

She glares. “Then stop looking.” She shoves her feet into her boots. “What do you want, Murphy?”

“We’re getting put to work,” he says, making himself comfortable on the arm of Bellamy’s couch. “You and me are a team, blondie.” She doesn’t even attempt to mask the grimace on her face. “Apparently your mother thinks we _bonded_ in Polis.”

“Ugh.” She stands, wincing at the way the room tilts to the side.

“I mean, I did pump the blood through your veins with my bare hands, so you could at least show a little gratitude,” he says, waving his arms theatrically, starting out the door. He waits for her to get her bearings, though, for her to brush her mess of hair out with her fingers before he walks side by side with her to their assignment, and never mentions the stolen champagne again.

 

They’re assigned to redistribution, which is just a fancy Ark term for going through dead people’s stuff to see what can be reused and recycled within the community. A lot of dead bodies in Polis means a lot of empty rooms in Arkadia, and as Murphy had told her, all of the remaining members of the hundred had been assigned to this job.

It’s strange, really, to see Murphy identify as one of the hundred. He was hanged and banished and ostracized from the beginning, but he’s come full circle from the boy he was when they landed, and Clarke meant what she said in polis. John Murphy is her friend.

Working with Murphy is both a blessing and a curse. His snide comments are comical enough to keep her entertained, but he is extremely inefficient. Clarke does most of the work, actually sifting through and sorting things, while Murphy messes around. He finds a bunch of toys in one room, including some sort of blue disk attached to a string.

“Check this out,” he says, motioning to Clarke.

“What is it?”

“It’s a yo-yo. I had one of these when I was little.” He winds up the string and holds it between two fingers, gesturing dramatically to Clarke. “Read it and weep.”

Clarke snorts. “I don’t think you know what that means.”

Rolling his eyes, he lets the yo-yo fly. When it reaches the bottom of the string, he yanks it back up, but instead of rolling up like Clarke knows it’s supposed to do, it swings up and hits him right in the face, leaving them both doubled over laughing until they remember that the yo-yo belonged to a dead kid, and then nothing is funny anymore.

 

They’re only on their third room when they hear the shouting from down the hall. Murphy shoots her an apologetic glance, and it’s only then that she is able to recognize the voices.

She drops the bag of clothes she’s sorting and moves towards the open door, shushing Murphy with a finger to her lips when he opens his mouth to speak.

“Octavia, please,” she hears Bellamy beg, voice muffled by the distance. “I tried to help you. I didn’t…” he trails off, and Clarke strains to hear. “Pike—“

“ _Enough_ Bellamy,” Octavia shouts, venom in her voice, and something clatters to the floor. “You killed _everyone._ You ruined _everything_. And now Lincoln is dead. Don’t point fingers because you can’t take the blame for what you’ve done.” Clarke hears something shatter, and then footsteps getting closer as Octavia marches right past the doorway she’s standing in.

“Don’t do it, Clarke,” Murphy warns from behind her, but her feet are already moving.

Clarke storms out of the tiny compartment and follows Octavia down the hall. When she’s within reach, she grabs her by the arm and spins her around, ignoring the murderous look in her sharp green eyes, and shoves her into the nearest vacant room.

“What the hell is _wrong_ with you?” Clarke shouts, voice louder and stronger than she anticipated, rage boiling inside of her. “You want to talk about blame, Octavia?” Octavia doesn’t flinch. “He blames himself for _everything_.” She knows this, knows him, like the back of her hand. “You have got to stop blaming him for something he didn’t do. He didn’t kill Lincoln. He tried to stop it! He did what he thought was ri—“

“What he did was _wrong_ ,” Octavia cuts her off, crowding Clarke’s space and clenching her jaw in a way that only the Blake siblings can. “He was angry, and he lashed out because that’s what he does!”

“No, Octavia,” Clarke says, voice even, dark. “That’s what _you_ do.” When Octavia huffs and rolls her eyes, Clarke jabs a finger at Octavia’s chest, anger pushing her forward. “You beat the _shit_ out of him. Chained him to a rock and beat him to a pulp. Your brother! Do you even know how messed up that is?”

Octavia’s arms are crossed, her shoulders rigid. Her eyes are intense, but empty. “You don't know anything, Clarke. It's not like you were there.”

“God” –Clarke presses her hand into her forehead— “that argument is getting so old! I get it, okay? Leaving was selfish. I _know_ that. I _know_ I didn’t deal with what happened in Mount Weather very well, but at least my solution wasn’t to _hurt_ anyone!” She flings her arms out to the side, exasperated.

Octavia laughs. “You really have no idea, do you?”

Clarke frowns, confused.

“You think you didn’t _hurt_ anyone?”

“Octavia—“

“You have no idea what you leaving did to us. To _him_.”

Clarke closes her eyes, doing her best to keep her composure.

“He committed _genocide_ for you, Clarke, so you wouldn’t have to be alone, and then you threw it all in his face when you left.”

“I—“ Clarke hears her own voice crack.

“Save it, Clarke,” she snaps, and then she marches right past her out the door.

 

 

.

It’s well past midnight when Clarke taps on Bellamy’s door, interrupting his night of staring at the ceiling. She’s standing in the dim light of the hallway, looking smaller than he’s ever seen. Her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, like she’s been crying.

He clears his throat. “Hey, is everything—“

She pushes past him without invitation. “I know it’s late, and I’m sorry, but I just needed—“ she spins on her heel and faces him, runs her hand through the front of her hair, takes a deep breath—“I just needed to get this out.”

He swallows and crosses his arms, bracing himself, and nods for her to continue.

She starts pacing again.

“So there I am last night, laying on the roof listening to your story about Mount Weather and thinking about everything that happened with Octavia and Pike and I just keep asking myself _‘Why does no one value his life?’_ “ He sees tears start to form in her eyes, hers her voice waver. “But how are you supposed to think any different when time and time again I have shown you that even _I_ don’t?”

“Clarke—“

“Bellamy, _I_ was the one that sent you into Mount Weather. _I_ left you alone at the gates. _I_ closed the dropship door.” Tears stain her face.

“Clarke.”

“ _I_ chose to stay in Polis even though I _knew_ you needed me.”

“ _Clarke._ ”

He lets his arms fall open, a subtle invitation, and Clarke accepts immediately, allowing herself to lean into him, crying freely. He rubs a soothing hand on her back, letting her tears soak through his shirt and into his skin.

“I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I’m so sorry.”

“Shh, Clarke. I forgive you,” he says into her hair, his voice a low rumble. “I forgive you.”

She pushes away from him then, storms circling in her eyes. “Why?” she says, wiping tears from her cheeks. “You and I both know I don’t deserve that.”

“Maybe not,” he says, “but forgiveness isn’t about what we deserve.”

She stares at him for a few moments, eyes wide and lips parted, her breathing still ragged from her crying. Eventually, she sits down on the edge of his bed, her head in her hands. He sits next to her, close enough that their thighs touch, his elbows propped up on his knees. He reaches out a hand to touch her and thinks twice about it, but Clarke notices his hesitation and takes his hand in her own, squeezing tight.

“Can we please put this behind us?” he asks. “I forgave you before I was even done being mad at you.” He nudges her shoulder with his. “I thought forgiveness was our thing.”

She snorts.

“I’m not sorry for shock lashing you,” she says, nudging him back.

Bellamy laughs. “Yeah, well, I think I deserved that one. “

They sit in silence for a moment, Bellamy tracing patterns on her hand with his thumb.

“Do you mind if I stay?” she whispers.

He blinks at her. “Of course not.”

When he stands and heads towards the couch, she catches his wrist. “There’s plenty of room for both of us,” she says, and that’s that.

 

They lay in silence, shoulder to shoulder in Bellamy’s full sized bed, staring at the ceiling. After a moment, Clarke huffs a breath and rolls on her side, facing him.

“Spit it out,” she says, nudging him.

“What?”

“You’re thinking really loud. What is it?”

He sighs, trying to sort the words out in his head. “When you were here with Octavia, you know I would’ve never…I would’ve never taken you to Pike if I had known he would hurt you.” He swallows, willing his heart to stay in his chest. “I would never have let him hurt you.”

He looks at her, finds the soft blue of her eyes, and she’s smiling. “I know, Bellamy.”

He nods, but she doesn’t roll away. Instead, she releases a breath and scoots towards him.

“Can I just—“ she starts, but he just lifts his arm, allowing her to curl into him.

“Goodnight, Clarke.”

He feels her nod against his chest, shifting so she has one leg over one of his and her hand splayed across his chest, and he continues to run a soothing hand up and down her back until her breathing is even and she finally falls asleep. He stares at the ceiling for a few minutes after, silently wondering if she can feel the thunderous beating of his heart through the thin fabric of his shirt.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one, I've been super busy wrapping up my internship and what not, which is also why this is 85% unedited. 
> 
> Anyhow, enjoy :) All kudos/comments are much appreciated!

It takes Raven less than 72 hours to find a safe zone. No one is surprised, really, because it’s Raven, but Bellamy remains a little skeptical, seeing as things on Earth are never as easy as they seem.

Raven has herded Bellamy, Clarke, and Monty inside the engineering station in the middle of the night. The lab is a whirlwind of papers, tablets, spare parts, and coffee. She has a fraying map taped to the wall, and after brief display of pride, she smacks a big red marker right near the middle.

“That’s our safe zone,” she says, and she’s smiling, fucking _beaming_.

“What is it?” Clarke asks, voice still scratchy with sleep.

“Wyoming,” she says. “Er—well, it used to be. It’s 300 miles from the closest nuclear reactor, and according to some old records I found in the Ark’s database, that one closed down in the early 2000s.” She gestures to the map. “And the best part? I talked to Roan, and he says there are no grounder clans that far west. Apparently, there’s some creepy folklore about the river.”

“How’d you figure this out?” Monty asks, shuffling through the papers scattered on Raven’s desk.

“With a little help from ALIE.”

Bellamy shudders.

“Relax,” Raven assures. “Turns out ALIE backed herself up on the Ark’s mainframe. All I had to do was hack into the Ark, and _voila_! All the information about the nuclear apocalypse at my fingertips.” She wiggles her fingers in the air.

She’s still smiling, so bright and so real. Bellamy and Clarke exchange a wary look.

“That’s it?” Clarke asks, speaking out loud the words they’d both been thinking. “It’s that easy?”

“It’s that easy,” Monty confirms, Raven nodding vigorously behind him. “We can survive this.”

Bellamy doesn’t know what they know, doesn’t see what they see, but he trusts them nonetheless, and when he looks back at Clarke, he sees something in her eyes that he wasn’t sure he’d see again, and the smile that starts to form on her lips only tells him that she sees it in his too: hope.

 

The weeks leading up to the exodus date are the longest weeks of Bellamy’s life. He spends almost every hour of every day on his feet doing supply runs with Miller, Bryan, and Harper, most of which have them returning empty handed. His back hurts, his feet hurt, his sister still won’t talk to him, and they’re preparing for a nuclear apocalypse. But they have a chance, a future, a tiny glimmer of hope, and that keeps him going.

Clarke keeps him going too, in the same subtle way she always has. He almost never sees her during the day, with him marching through woods looking for absolutely anything useful and her stuck in council meetings discussing politics and “what the hell do we do about the grounders” and other diplomatic shit he has no interest in.

She’s there at night, though, when he trudges through the gates after spending days in the woods, exhausted and sleep deprived, barely enough energy to strip down and shower before collapsing into bed next to her. She’s usually asleep when he gets there, but she always scoots closer, curling into his side, breathing him in.

She’s there for the nightmares, too, which come even when he thinks he’s too tired to dream. She sits up with him while he tries to catch his breath, her head on his shoulder, her fingers drawing circles on his forearm, whispering, “it’s not real, it’s not real,” until he finally believes it.

Clarke’s nightmares aren’t as violent, but they keep her awake for hours. It’s then that she tells him about her life on the Ark: her dad, Wells, the first time she got drunk. She tells him about Finn and her mom and her time alone in the woods, and even though he was there for some of these, it feels like she’s baring the darkest parts of her soul to him, so he just listens.

She chips away at his walls, too. He tells her about raising Octavia, about his short time on the guard. He tells her about what she missed while she was gone, but only the good stuff, like Raven setting up running water and Octavia getting her horse. She gets him to open up about Gina, and when he recounts their story and thinks of her bright eyes and easy smile, his heart doesn’t hurt quite the way it used to.

 

 

.

Three days before the set exodus date, the council decides to construct a reconnaissance team to head out before the rest of the camp to report on any terrain issues or potential threats. Abby implements a volunteer system, which is her first mistake, because, naturally, Bellamy volunteers. So, _naturally_ , Clarke does too, and then so does Raven, and then Monty, and then Harper, until the reconnaissance team is just the remaining delinquents plus Bryan and Emori with a giant Raven-made radio receiver strapped to the top of Rover 1.

Abby’s second mistake is trying to stop them.

“This is _not_ happening,” she says, even as they’re loading their final supplies. “Clarke, listen to me. This is dangerous! We have no idea what could be out there.”

“Mom, it’s fine. We’re at peace with the Grounders, we all have guns, _and_ we have Raven.” When Abby frowns, Clarke shrugs. “Raven always saves our asses.”

“Damn right I do,” Raven says, hopping down from the back of the rover and wrapping Abby in a hug. “We’ll be fine, Abby. Promise.”

That seems to do it for Abby, because she just hugs Clarke, plants a kiss on the top of her head, and sends them on their way.

“You radio every four hours,” she tells her, still not letting go. “I mean it. Every four hours.”

 

Only 20 minutes into the exodus, Raven makes a sharp left, sending everyone in the back of the rover out of their seats.

“What the hell, Raven!” Clarke says, extracting herself from where she landed Harper’s lap.

“We’re taking a quick detour,” she says as the dropship peeks out through the trees. “I thought it might do us well to say goodbye.”

Clarke exchanges a wary look with Bellamy.

“This was our home,” Raven says, putting the rover in park and hopping out. “Plus, half of Finn is here” – she shoots Jasper a glare—“and I’d like to spread the rest of…him.”

Murphy and Emori elect to stay in the rover, but everyone else hops out to say goodbye to the place they used to call home. Clarke skirts the perimeter of the camp, watching Miller gesture enthusiastically to Bryan, Jasper and Monty standing close, smiling, _laughing_.

Eventually, she finds herself on her knees in front of Wells’ grave. She doesn’t know how long she sits there, her fingers digging into the soft earth, before Bellamy appears behind her. He doesn’t say anything, just crouches down to her level, just raises an eyebrow when she looks over her shoulder at him. Before she even knows what she’s doing, the words start spilling from her lips.

“I came here that first night,” she starts. “After Mount Weather. I didn’t know where else to go. But I—I couldn’t stay, I—this is where I became a mass murderer.” She makes a sound, a kind of choked laugh. “My first of three. And just…all I could think about was Finn. That I had killed him for nothing. I killed him for that alliance, and she still—they still turned their backs on us.”

“You did the right thing,” he says, gentle. “There’s nothing you could have done to save him.”

“I could have killed her then,” she blurts out.

“Then you’d both be dead.”

“I could have killed her then,” she repeats, the tears spilling over, the hurt in her voice betraying her words. “And it wouldn’t even matter, because she’s gone too. Because of me.” She digs her fingers into the ground. “And Wells” –her voice breaks—“my best friend for my _whole_ life. I didn’t even mourn him. He let me hate him for a _year_ , for something he didn’t do, and I didn’t even mourn him.” Her heart is in her throat. “Everyone who has ever loved me is dead.”

Bellamy is quiet behind her for so long, she’s sure he’s not going to speak at all. But then he does.

“Not everyone,” he says, soft, and then he’s gone.

 

When she walks back to the rover, her back straight, her head held high, Bellamy is waiting for her.

“You okay?” she asks him.

He huffs a laugh. “Are _you_ okay?”

“No,” she says, honest. “But I think maybe I could be.”

He smiles. “Me, too.”

 

By the time they cross the river—“The Mississippi,” Raven reminds them –they’ve been traveling for at least two weeks, and they haven’t seen another human. Clarke doesn’t question it. The only reason the Grounders back east survived is because of Becca and her creepy black gene-modifying blood. No one else would be able to survive the radiation.

One night, while Miller is telling another one of his stupid ghost stories, Clarke is leaned up against Bellamy’s leg where he’s sitting by the fire, him carding his fingers through her hair. She’s so comfortable, she doesn’t even notice when the fire starts to die and Harper shouts “Nose goes!” and touches her finger to the tip of her nose.

“Clarke, Murphy, you’re on firewood!”

Clarke opens one eye, only to see that everyone has a finger to their nose except for her. She groans.

“Why me?” Murphy protests, one finger still on his nose. “I touched my nose!”

“Yeah, but you were last, and Clarke can’t go alone,” Harper smiles.

Clarke grunts, standing to stretch her limbs. It’s not a far walk to the edge of the woods from where they’re camped in the clearing, so gathering enough firewood to get through the night shouldn’t take long. But she’s with Murphy, so.

As she turns to the woods, Bellamy catches her elbow and presses his handgun into her palm.

“Is this for me to use on Murphy?” she teases.

He smiles, soft, and Clarke feels momentarily dizzy. “Just in case,” he says.

 

In the woods, she and Murphy collect sticks.

“This is the dumbest job,” she complains, breaking a particularly long stick in two. “I can’t wait to add this to my resume. Skills: murder, saving the world, and stick collecting.”

Murphy rolls his eyes. “Why do I keep getting stuck with you again?”

Clarke breaks another stick. “We bonded, remember? We watched my girlfriend die together, I called you my friend that one time in front of Titus.” Clarke’s tone is sarcastic, but despite the way they started off, she genuinely likes Murphy. “Oh, and I can’t forget that one time you manually pumped Ontari’s blood through—“

Clarke is cut off by a gunshot.

She shares a look with Murphy, and then they both drop the sticks in their arms and sprint towards the clearing. She’s almost to the edge when the scene unfolds before her: Miller, his gun yanked out of his arms, a boot to the chest. Raven, on her knees, a knife to her throat. Jasper, held down on his stomach, face in the mud.

The rest of the delinquents have put up a decent fight, but they’re outnumbered. There are two rusty pickup trucks and a van, and there are, by Clarke’s count, at least 10 very large men.

She’s about to call out, sprint to them, _something_ , when Murphy grabs her from behind, clamping a hand over her mouth. She fights against his grip, but it’s no use.

“Shh,” he whispers, but it does nothing to calm her. “We can’t help them from here.”

She fights harder, tears spilling from her eyes as she watches the rest of her friends, _Bellamy_ , forced to their knees and knocked unconscious, one by one.

“We can’t help them from here,” Murphy repeats, but she hears the panic in his voice. She spots Emori as one of the men binds her, blindfolds her, and loads her into the back of the van.

The vehicles take off as quick as they came ( _west,_ Clarke catalogues), leaving only the rover and the dying fire in the clearing. Murphy releases her, and that’s when she sees Octavia rolling out from under the rover.

Before Murphy has the chance to restrain her again, Clarke sprits into the clearing, tackling Octavia to the ground.

“What the _hell_ was that?” Clarke shouts, vaguely registering Murphy’s hands pulling at her from behind. She shakes him off. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of fucking samurai? You didn’t even _try_ to help them!”

Octavia is much stronger than she is, and Clarke is on her back in a second.

“We were outnumbered, Clarke,” Octavia says, voice surprisingly shaky. “There was nothing I could have done that wouldn’t have ended with me on those trucks too.” She releases her hold on Clarke, allowing her to stand.

Clarke glares, but she knows Octavia is right. “They went west,” she says. “We can head that way, look for tire tracks. They can’t be too far from here. And they didn’t kill them” – she swallows thickly – “so that’s something, right? We can still save them.”

Octavia nods, and so does Murphy, but neither of them really look convinced.

Clarke continues. “They’ll probably come back for the rover, so—“

Octavia whirls around and flings the passenger door open, startling Clarke. She digs around until she produces one of Raven’s sat phones, shoving it in Clarkes face.

“We can track them,” she says, confident, with a light in her eyes Clarke hasn’t seen in months. “Raven has the other one.”

Sure enough, there’s a little red dot on the tiny screen, slowly moving west.

Clarke takes a deep breath, trying her best to compose herself, even as her heart races. “Let’s go.”

 

 

.

When Bellamy comes to, his hands are bound in front of him, he’s blindfolded, and his head _fucking hurts_. The first thing he does is remove the blindfold, because he can’t wait to see wat kind of idiot grounders would bind his hands _in front of him_.

He finds that his captors are not grounders at all. He supposes that, technically, they are grounders, since they were probably born on Earth, but they certainly don’t look the part.

First off, whatever building they’re being housed in is powered by electricity. Second, there are no tattoos, no elaborate and unnecessary clothing, and all of his captors are speaking English. Four of the men he recognizes from the clearing are sitting at a plastic table, playing cards and smoking.

He does a mental head count as the rest of the delinquents start to regain consciousness, and when he doesn’t see Octavia among them, he releases a breath. He’d seen her dive under the rover. These idiots didn’t see her. She’s safe.

He thinks of Clarke. She has a gun, he tells himself. She was in the woods. She’s safe.

Murphy is probably fine too.

His captors don’t notice him until he stands.

“Hey!” One of them, a big, hairy fellow, grabs an old rifle from the wall and points it in his face.

Bellamy easily grabs the front end of the rifle and slams it into his attacker’s face, knocking him out.

He kneels, doing his best to untie the knots around Miller’s wrists, but before he can get the ropes off, another man, presumably their leader, points the old rifle at his head, clicking off the safety. Bellamy isn’t convinced the ancient thing even works, but he’s not willing to take that chance, so he raises his bound hands above his head in surrender.

“Looks like we have a rebel,” the man says, giving Bellamy an up close view of his rotting teeth. “This is gonna be fun,” he laughs, and then slams the butt of the gun into Bellamy’s head.

Bellamy clings desperately to consciousness for as long as he can. His last coherent thought is nothing more than the blue of Clarke’s eyes, and then everything is black.

 

When Bellamy comes to the second time, he’s strung up buy his wrists in a musty old cellar, his toes barely touch the ground, and his head still _fucking hurts_.

“Good mornin’ sunshine.” His captor is lounging in a ripped up recliner in front of him, spinning a knife through his fingers. “I thought you were just gonna sleep all day.” He as an accent Bellamy has only heard in the old westerns they used to play on the Ark.

“Who are you?” Bellamy asks.

The man shakes his head and stands, touching the point of his blade to Bellamy’s chin, lifting his head and forcing him to look him in the eye. “I’ll be asking the questions.”

Before he can get another word out, Bellamy lifts himself by the ropes and puts both feet into the man’s chest, sending him backwards. While he’s down, Bellamy tries desperately to get one of his hands loose, but his struggling only makes the ropes tighter. He just pulls harder, dislocating his thumb with a pop, but it’s no use. The man gets to his feet and gives him a swift right hook. Bellamy sees stars.

“So,” the man starts, dusting himself off and pressing the tip of his knife into Bellamy’s sternum, just enough pressure to break the skin, letting tiny bloom of red form around the tip. “Are we gonna do this the easy way? Or are we gonna do it the hard way?”

Bellamy wills himself to ignore the pounding in his head. “I don’t know what you want.”

“I want to know why you’re on this side of the river,” he says. His voice has an edge to it that Bellamy recognizes as panic.

He raises his head to get a good look at the man. He’s tall and burly, with greasy, shoulder length hair, rotting teeth, and a nasty scar that runs from his eyebrow to his cheekbone.

“Hey!” he says when Bellamy doesn’t answer, pressing the blade into a new spot on his chest. “No one has crossed that bridge in years.”

“We’re just passing through.”

The man scoffs. “Don’t lie to me,” he snarls, letting the knife slide.

Bellamy hisses as the blade tears through his shirt and skin. “We’re just passing through,” he repeats through gritted teeth. “We didn’t even know there was anyone here.”

“Where’d you get the guns?”

Bellamy is silent.

The man slashes his chest again. “I said, _where’d you get the goddamn guns?_ ”

“They belong to us, they—“

The man narrows his eyes. “Who sent you?”

_“What?”_

The man strikes him across the face with the handle of his knife. “Who sent you?” His words are slow, even, dangerous.

“No one,” Bellamy says, flexing his jaw. “I told you, we’re just passing—“

A fist to the jaw.

“I swear—“

A blade to his chest.

“ _Please_.”

A fist to the gut.

Bellamy can hardly breathe. “I don’t know what you want!”

Another slash. “I want information!”

“I don’t have any!” Bellamy roars. He regrets the words the moment they leave his lips. He’s trained for this. He knows what happens now.

The man sighs, wiping his blade clean on the leg of his pants. “Well, then,” he says, dragging the tip of the blade slowly across Bellamy’s jugular, a tiny trickle of blood following. “It seems you’ve outlived your usefulness.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Does this count as a cliffhanger?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one! Hope you all enjoy :)

It’s morning by time Clarke pulls the rover into the compound. It’s small, only a couple of crude huts and some giant metal boxes arranged in a semi-circle, so there’s no way it’s the entire village. It takes her no time to determine where her people are. The vehicles she recognizes from the clearing are backed up to the large building in the center, the only permanent looking structure on the whole site. 

As they approach the building, Clarke can feel Octavia tense behind her. There’s no one on watch; no guards, no spotters, no  _ nothing.  _

“It’s probably a trap,” Octavia says, keeping her sword out in front of her.

“I think there’s just no one else out here,” Murphy says, raising his gun anyway. “Or they’re just genuinely stupid.”

Clarke thinks about how the men in the clearing were the first people they’d seen in  _ weeks _ . “Or both. They didn’t bother to scout us or track us. They left the rover in the clearing.” She rolls her eyes at the level of incompetence. “They didn’t even notice Octavia.”

As much as Clarke is confused about the lack of preparedness in this situation, it makes her hopeful. Here, maybe things aren’t like they were in Arkadia.

“I guess we’re about to find out,” Octavia says, and then she kicks down the door.

It swings open wildly, having not even been locked, revealing their friends, bound and gagged on the rug in the middle of the room. 

There are four men playing cards at a plastic table, and they look up, startled. One reaches for a knife at their waistband, but Murphy has his gun on him in a second. 

Murphy holds the weaponless men at gunpoint and Octavia threatens them in trigedasleng while Clarke assesses the delinquents. They look relatively uninjured, but one is missing. Her heart is in her throat.

She kneels, making quick work of the binds on Miller’s wrists, and wills her hands not to shake. 

“They took Bellamy downstairs,” Miller says, before she can even get the words out. “I don’t know what they’re doing, but it doesn’t sound good.”

Miller points in the general direction of the basement and grabs his gun from where they’ve been piled on a table across the room and  _ God, these people are stupid.  _ “I got this,” he says, motioning to the rest of their friends. “Go.”

Clarke barrels down the stairs and throws herself into the door at the bottom, desperate to get to Bellamy. Unlike the front door, it remains locked.

She hits it again. Doesn’t budge.

A third time. Nothing.

Her heart is hammering in her chest. Finally, she points her gun and shoots the door handle right off. When she bursts through the door, her eyes search for Bellamy immediately. 

When she sees him, he’s strung up by rope with his hands above his head, his shirt shredded and bloody. His chest is covered in cuts and bruises, heaving with every breath. 

He’s alive. He’s  _ alive. _

There’s a man behind him, using his body as some sort of shield, a knife to his throat. The fear in Bellamy’s eyes makes her throat burn.

When he spies the gun in her hand, the man opens his mouth to speak, but Clarke has no plans of negotiating Bellamy’s life with anyone. Before he can get a word out, she puts a bullet between his eyes.

Bellamy’s body slumps with relief when she finally cuts the ropes, both of them falling to their knees. She starts to unbind his hands, but Bellamy is just staring at her, expression unreadable, and Clarke feels her emotions bubbling up inside her, threatening to spill over.

She almost lost him today.

“That was close,” he says quietly, eyes never leaving her face, and that’s when she loses it. 

Her fingers are trembling when she finally gets the rope off his wrists, and her breath is coming in gasps as she tries to fight the tears pooling in her eyes. She tries to find her voice, but the only sound that comes out is a half-sob half-laugh.

When she looks at him, she sees that his eyes are watery, too.

Without hesitation, Bellamy wraps his arms around her waist and pulls her into him, his face buried in her neck. She doesn’t react immediately, because in all the time she’s known Bellamy Blake, he’s never been the one to initiate any contact between them. 

He doesn’t let go, though, and she hears his own ragged breaths and that’s all it takes for her to wrap her arms around him and let the tears fall.

She doesn’t know how long they sit there like that, wrapped around each other on the cool metal floor of the cellar, but when the door swings open behind them, they break apart quickly. Clarke scrambles for her gun, but it’s only Murphy. 

“Hurry up,” he says. “Miller’s got a bunch of angry redneck grounders up there. We need to move.”

 

 

Clarke sits across the table from one of her friend’s captors. His hands are tied behind the back of the white plastic chair he’s perched on.

Clarke places her gun on the table.

“Relax,” she says when the man flinches. “I’m not going to kill you.”

His shoulders relax a little at that. 

“But  _ he _ might,” Clarke says, flitting her eyes to where Bellamy stands beside her, arms crossed over his chest. “If you cooperate, I’ll give you this.” She waves the gun a little, and the man’s eyes light up.

Clarke makes a show of emptying the remaining seven bullets.

“Here’s how this works,” she says. “You answer a question, you get one of these.” She rolls a shiny golden bullet between her fingers. “Got it?”

The man nods.

“Good. What’s your name?”

“John Barlow,” he replies easily.

Clarke plants a bullet in front of him and he smirks.

“Okay, John,” she says, voice even. “What did you want with my friends?”

John doesn’t answer, only wiping the smirk from his face and narrowing his beady eyes.

“Oh come on, you didn’t think they were all going to be as easy as the first one, did you?” 

He grunts, and Bellamy tightens his grip on his gun beside her.

“Ain’t nobody been ‘cross that bridge in years,” John drawls, leaning forward over the table. “Last time somebody crossed, they tried to wipe us out. They failed,” he says, puffing out his chest. “Everybody that crosses that bridge has been a threat. And they sure as hell never had no guns before.”

Clarke nods and lines up a second bullet with the first.

“How many of you are there?” Bellamy asks from beside her.

“’Bout 60.”

A third bullet.

“Where are they? There certainly isn’t room for 60 people here.” Clarke furrows her brow.

He doesn’t answer.

“I don’t want to hurt your people, John.”

John glances out the window to their right, and his eyes look sad. “There’s a bunch of houses, ‘bout a mile north of here. That’s where they are.”

Clarke doesn’t give him a bullet; she knows there’s more.

John must know that she knows, because he keeps going. “Most of ‘em are sick.”

“Sick? With what?”

“Don’t know. It’s some new disease, nothin’ like the flu we had last fall. They got boils on their skin, their faces. It’s like they all been on fire.”

Clarke closes her eyes. “Radiation,” she breathes, turning to face Bellamy. 

He’s already looking at her. His face is grave. “It’s here.”

Clarke shudders and adds another bullet to the line.

“We should go, Clarke.”

Clarke nods but doesn’t stand. She looks back to John. “What else is out here?”

John cocks an eyebrow. 

“ _ Who _ else is out here?”

“Nothin’. Nobody. Not for miles and miles.”

Clarke thinks he’s telling the truth. She  _ hopes _ he’s telling the truth. She gives him the remaining bullets and walks out the door.

 

 

.

Bellamy sits in the back of the rover while Raven speeds through the plains and barks orders and information to Abby over the radio. Clarke is crouched in front of him, doing her best to patch him up in the shaky vehicle.

She’s about halfway through stitching up a particularly deep wound on his chest when her hands start to shake. 

“Clarke,” he says, low, trying to keep from waking the sleeping delinquents.

She only furrows her brow and attempts to steady her hands, but it's no use.

“Clarke,” he repeats, grabbing both of her trembling hands in one of his. “Talk to me.”

She looks anywhere but at him. “I told you, I can’t,” she says, voice barely above a whisper. “I can’t lose you.”

“Hey. You didn’t.”

“I almost did.”

She’s right. Bellamy had been two, maybe three seconds from having his throat slit when she first banged on the door. He flattens her palm against the warm skin over his heart. “But you didn’t. You  _ won’t _ .”

She looks at him then, and for a second he sees her features soften, but then she’s back to business. She finishes his stitches in silence.

“You have a severe concussion,” she says, as if he didn't already know. “I’ll check on you every few hours.” She moves to the other side of the rover, wedging herself in the tiny space between Jasper and Harper, and Bellamy can only watch as Clarke’s walls go back up.

 

They reach the coordinates of the safe zone only 16 days after leaving Arkadia, and their new home is nothing short of beautiful. They’re nestled in a valley, only a few miles from a lake with water that is exquisitely blue with huge, snow capped mountains and tall trees turning orange and yellow with the cooling air.

Clarke still has him benched, so Bellamy is forced to sit around camp while the others prepare for their new home. He spends almost three days in and around his tent, twiddling his thumbs during the day and dealing with Clarke’s cold dissidence at night.

He’s not surprised to hear her crawl into his tent the first night in the new camp--she’s been his roommate for months--but instead of sliding in next to him like she usually does, she spreads her bedroll on the other side of the tent and lies down with her back to him. She’s still barely an arm’s length away, and if he wanted to, Bellamy could reach out and skim his fingers along her back.

“I have to monitor your concussion,” she says by way of explaining her presence, and then she’s asleep.

She’s kept her distance since that moment in the rover, only touching his shoulder to wake him every few hours like he knows she’s supposed to. She only speaks to him when she’s examining him, never seeking him out the way she used to. 

“Do you have a headache?” she asks the first night in camp, robotically checking his stitches.

“Not really, no.”

“Do you know where we are?”

“Yes.”

“How’s your vision?”

“It’s fine--Clarke, please,” he says, gently grabbing her jaw and tilting her face up, forcing her to look at him. “Please talk to me. What’s going on?”

She averts her eyes even as he feels her lean into his touch, but she doesn’t answer. She gently places his hands back in his lap and scoots back to her own bedroll. “I’ll check again in the morning,” she says, effectively ending the conversation.

It’s like this on the second night, too. She wakes him up only once this time, asks her questions and ignores his, then rolls over and goes back to sleep.

Bellamy wakes when he hears her sharp intake of breath and the rustle of the blankets as she pulls herself from a nightmare. He can see the shine of sweat on her face and chest as she tries to catch her breath in the dim light of the tent. 

“Clarke,” he whispers. “Hey. It’s okay. It was just a dream.”

Her breathing doesn’t slow. 

Bellamy tentatively reaches out his hand, ready for her to reject him, but to his surprise, her hand scrambles for purchase on the cold dirt floor of the tent until her fingers find his. She grips his hand tight, and doesn’t let go even after she falls asleep.

On the third evening in the new camp, Clarke clears him of his concussion, but she doesn’t move out of his tent.

 

 

The rest of the Arkadians are still ten to twelve days out, according to Raven, rerouting south to avoid the higher radiation levels along the original path. The delinquents do plenty of hunting, trying to stock up as the autumn air starts to cool. Monty and Jasper start cataloguing the native plants, marking down which are edible and which will leave Murphy puking for three days. 

Emori teaches Bellamy how to properly skin an animal, which he appreciates, because they travelled with limited supplies, meaning only a few of the delinquents have blankets, and it’s starting to get chilly when the sun goes down.

He’s sitting alone by the fire one night, sewing together a few furs, when Octavia marches out of the woods with two squirrels and plops down next to him. He’s surprised, to say the least, because while Octavia has been significantly less hostile since he almost died, she certainly hasn’t gone out of her way to sit next to him. He doesn’t say anything, though, afraid to jinx it.

They sit in semi-comfortable silence for awhile, Octavia roasting her squirrels over the fire while Bellamy makes work of the furs. He sees Octavia glance at him.

“What is that even supposed to be?”

Her tone is light, only slightly accusatory. Bellamy knows he’s rusty with a sewing needle, but he didn’t think a blanket could be unrecognizable. 

“It’s a blanket,” he says, holding it up so she can see. It’s a little misshapen, resembling more of a rhombus than a rectangle. Octavia raises her eyebrows in question. “It’s a work in progress,” he amends, and she almost smiles.

They sit in silence a little longer before Octavia pipes up again.

“I’m sorry I hit you,” she says quietly. 

His first instinct is to tell her it’s okay, but he snaps his mouth shut before the words can tumble out. Instead, he says, “I forgive you.”

Anyone else might need a little more in an apology, but not Bellamy, and certainly not from Octavia. She’s his baby sister, and he  _ knows  _ her, knows that she means it. Even though things between them will probably never be the same, it’s not like it was ever  _ normal _ . Even if their relationship is a little fucked up, he loves her more than anything on this rotten planet. So he forgives her.

She looks up at him through watery eyes, and Bellamy has to suppress the urge to wrap her in a hug the way he used to when she was little. Instead, he offers his hand. 

She takes it.

It’s a start.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Here, we have some Briller, some Clurphy friendship, and also, a chicken makes a cameo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the final chapter! Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this and leave a comment or kudos. I couldn't have done it without you guys :)
> 
> Also, thanks to my girl Kelsi. This fic would have been trash without her.
> 
> Enjoy!

Clarke is in engineering—also known as Raven’s tent—when she hears the hunting party roll in, far more boisterous than usual. She peeks her head out just in time to see Miller saunter across the camp, a real live chicken in hand, and plant a wet one on Bryan’s lips, which wouldn’t be unusual, really, except the rest of the delinquents are cheering, and Miller is still cradling a chicken.

Bellamy catches her eye from across camp and strides over to her, smile still fresh on his lips, and as much as she’s tried to avoid it lately, her heart is beating wildly in her chest.

She’s scared. Not only of what it might mean, the way her stomach flips at the sight of him, the way she feels most comfortable in his presence, but also what it means for him. She knows it’s not logical, believing that everyone who loves her is doomed to death, but the universe has never done her any favors, and it’s not like anything she’s experienced on Earth has been logical anyway.

Even so, it’s hard to stay away. Bellamy is her best friend, after all, and he’s the only one who can even begin to understand what she’s been through.

But she can’t lose him.

“What just happened?” she asks him when he approaches.

“They’re getting married,” he says, turning to stand shoulder to shoulder with her. She can feel the warmth of him even in the crisp fall air, and she can’t help but scoot a little closer.

“What? Why?”

“Miller found a chicken,” he says, like that explains anything.

She waits for him to go on, but he doesn’t. Instead, unable to help herself, Clarke studies his profile as he smiles at the scene before them. Her eyes trace the hard angles of his jaw, the constellation of freckles on his dark skin. She itches for a sketchbook.

He turns to her, and if he catches her staring, he doesn’t mention it.

“Did you ever think we’d get this far?” he asks, still a look of wonder on his face.

“No,” she answers honestly. “I didn’t even think we’d survive opening the dropship door.”

Bellamy chuckles at the memory of their first meeting. “Yeah,” he agrees, and Clarke shivers when his knuckles brush the back of her hand. “Me either.”

 

Bryan and Miller decide to get married as soon as possible, not bothering to wait for the rest of Arkadia to join them in camp. When Raven asks why, all Miller does is throw his arm over her shoulder and say, “You guys are all I need.”

On the Ark, marriage was a simple union. There were never excess resources for a celebration or fanfare, so a couple simply had to apply for a license and exchange rings and they were married. Oftentimes, people were matched based on genetic compatibility—they had to keep the population low while also sustaining genetic diversity—and more often than not, a marriage wasn’t even born of love.

According to Emori, marriage on the ground is sacred. There are matching tattoos, sacred rituals, and celebrations that can go on for days, with wine and food and music.

Miller and Bryan decide to go with something in the middle. They leave out the rituals and traditional garb and war paint that Emori had tried to talk them into, and instead, they wear their regular clothes. They stand hand in hand in front of the fire while Jasper, the chicken in hand, narrates the ceremony.

It’s a lighthearted ceremony, with Jasper keeping everyone laughing. They exchange vows, and things get a little sappy, the usually stoic Miller shedding a single tear when he reads the words he wrote to Bryan. They don’t have rings, so they let Octavia give them tiny, matching tattoos on their fingers. Then they kiss, and everyone cheers, and they seem so _happy_.

But even through the surge of pride she feels as she watches her friends celebrate their new marriage, dancing and laughing and singing, Clarke can’t help but feel a tightness in her chest knowing that she will never deserve happiness like this.

She celebrates with the others for a while, nursing a cup of Monty’s new batch of moonshine (slightly less battery acid-flavored than usual) while the kids hoot and holler and play drinking games. Soon enough, though, she finds herself watching the party from a distance, back leaned up against a log by the fire, legs curled up to her chest.

Murphy finds her first.

“You okay?” he asks, plopping down next to her. It almost sounds sincere.

“Fine,” she mumbles, not looking up.

Murphy snorts. “Convincing. Mind if I join your pity party?”

Clarke hums.

Murphy snatches the tin cup from her hand and finishes her moonshine in a single gulp, sputtering as it burns its way down his throat. “God, that’s terrible.”

Clarke sighs. They sit in silence for a while.

“So, why are we moping over here while the rest of our friends are getting drunk and having fun?” Murphy asks after a while.

“I am definitely getting drunk,” she replies, swiping her cup back from Murphy and refilling it with moonshine from the jug nestled between her feet.

“Look, Clarke,” Murphy says, rolling his eyes at her avoidance of his question. “I know you think that you don’t deserve that, or that you’re cursed, or whatever other garbage you’ve been spouting lately, but that’s bullshit. The people we were back in Polis and Arkadia—” he waves his hand for dramatic effect, “—we don’t have to be them anymore.”

Clarke turns her head, finally looking him in the eye. Maybe Murphy is right—he certainly doesn’t seem like the rat of a boy from the dropship anymore.

“You can leave Wanheda, her stupid curse, and her nasty dreads back in Polis.”

She smiles at this. Murphy chuckles, knocking shoulders with her.

“You did it, Clarke. You got us here. You’re the reason we’re alive. You don’t have to fight anymore. And for the record,” he says, standing, “you _do_ deserve that. I think we all do.”

  


.

When Bellamy stumbles back into his tent, drunk and happy, he expects Clarke to be asleep. What he doesn’t expect is for her to be asleep in _his_ bed, wrapped up in his lopsided blanket. Upon closer inspection, he finds that she’s pushed her bedroll next to his and is sprawled across the middle, leaving him almost no space.

He tries to move Clarke without waking her, just a gentle hand on her arm and hip, but he fails.

“Sorry,” he whispers when she startles.

“‘S okay,” she says, making room for him next to her.

He toes off his boots and peels off his outer layers before sliding in beside her, careful not to get too close. He doesn’t know why Clarke suddenly wants to share a bed with him again after a week of sleeping on the opposite side of their tent (his guess is that she’s searching for body heat) but he certainly doesn’t want to push her.

“You cold?”

“No,” she says, scooting close and tucking herself into his side like she used to.

He wraps an arm around her instinctively. He’s missed her.

“I’m sorry,” she says into his shoulder, and maybe it’s the alcohol that makes him turn his head and gently press his lips to her forehead, but Bellamy isn’t so sure.

 

Clarke lingers the next morning. They only have a few more days to prepare the camp for the rest of the Sky People to arrive, and they’re way behind schedule. Still, she manages to get him to sleep for an extra hour, and when they do finally wake, she stays, head on his chest and legs tangled with his, the two of them relishing in the quiet of the morning and the warm yellow light filtering through the thin fabric of his tent.

They only get up when they hear the rest of the camp begin to come to life. With a sigh, Clarke extracts herself from his arms, tying her hair back and slipping into her boots while Bellamy shrugs into his jacket.

Just as they’re about to go their separate ways for the day, Clarke smiles in his direction.

“I’ll see you later, Bellamy.”

He can’t help but smile back. “Yeah, see you later.”

 

Later, according to the tiny digital clock Bellamy keeps in his tent, is five minutes to midnight. He’s spent the better part of the day analyzing maps and terrain with Raven, trying to understand this new world around them. When Raven had eventually clocked out, he’d taken the work back to his tent, trying to get as much work finished as he could before the rest of his people arrived.

He’s still working, maps spread out on his Miller-made desk (high-quality) while he sits on a Murphy-made chair (garbage), when Clarke shows up. She stops short, standing silently in the “entryway” of their tent.

He glances up at her, and she turns like she’s going to leave, but stops herself again, exhaling a long breath and turning back to face him.

“Are you okay?” he asks. “You’re being weird.”

“I came here to tell you something.”

Bellamy stands and gives her his full attention. “Tell me what?”

She’s being awfully cryptic, and she’s still standing in the same spot, wringing her hands in front of her. It makes him nervous.

“I came to tell you that—that I love you,” she says, and Bellamy isn’t sure that his heart is beating anymore. “And I’m scared. I’m absolutely terrified but God, Bellamy, I really don’t want to go another day without you knowing how I feel. I used to think that love was weakness, and that after everything I’d done, I didn’t deserve to find love.” Her voice falters, and even from where he’s standing, he can see the shine of tears in her eyes. “But I had it all along. And maybe I didn’t understand it, but it was never, _ever_ weakness. So, I’m telling you. I love you. I’m in love with you.” She swallows. “Please say something.”

Bellamy considers himself to be good with words, but now, they are failing him.

“Clarke,” is all he can manage, because _how could she not know?_

And then he’s kissing her.

Her lips are soft and sweet, and when he sweeps his hands down her sides, she sighs, and _God,_ he loves her.

She walks them backwards to their bed, not breaking the kiss except to rid them both of their shirts. Clarke laughs when he fumbles with her pants, and it’s by far the best sound he’s ever heard.

He’s not sure how to articulate the way he feels about her with words, so he tries to show her. He tells her with his hands, gently stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, running his fingers through her golden waves. He tells her with a kiss on her cheek, her neck, her inner thigh.

And then he’s inside her, and the only coherent thought he has is _Clarke_.

After, when they lay sated in their bed, Clarke tracing patterns on his skin, he finds the words.

“I love you,” he whispers.

She smiles, pressing her lips to the spot over his heart. “You were right, you know,” she says, slotting herself into his side. She looks ethereal in the moonlight, all porcelain skin and clear blue eyes.

“About what?” he asks.

“Being happy again,” she says. “This.”

He hums in agreement. He doesn’t know if they really deserve it, and quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. If he’s learned anything on the ground, it’s that the Earth doesn’t care about what anyone deserves. On Earth, you have to fight for what you want.

This is what they’ve worked for, all this time. They’ve fought and bled killed, but not just so they could survive. So they could live. So they could _love_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. There it is guys! I really enjoyed writing this, and I have a couple of other ideas up my sleeve, but if you guys have any prompts, I'd be glad to give them a try!
> 
> I also have to admit, that was my first time writing anything even _slightly_ suggestive. And I giggled the whole time, so. Don't judge me :-)
> 
> I'm  bellstan  on tumblr. Feel free to fangirl about Bellarke with me :)


End file.
